1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to document administration apparatus and method which obtain electronic data by reading a paper original existing as, e.g., a form and electrically form a predetermined material by using the obtained electronic data, a storage medium which stores a computer-readable program to achieve the document administration method, and a program itself which is used to achieve the document administration method.
2. Related Background Art
Presently, the country, prefectures, and municipalities such as cities, towns and villages adopt various systems, and thus provide various administrative services. For example, these systems and administrative services include nursing care insurance services for the people who need various cares, pension plans for physically handicapped people, and the like. Here, when a citizen intends to enjoy the right based on these services and systems, it is generally necessary to file an application to a service providing side (or a service provider).
In many cases, the application is filed by using a dedicated application document (i.e., application format). More specifically, the citizen enters and fills necessary items on the application document by using a pen and/or application software such as a word processor. Then, the service provider confirms the items which have been filled on the application document filed by the citizen (i.e., an applicant), and then examines based on the filled items whether the applicant has a right to receive the necessary service.
In this case, the service provider performs the examination on the basis of the application document filed by the applicant. Here, it should be noted that the application document includes the information which is necessary when the application is filed and the service is actually provided but is unnecessary when the content of the application document is examined, and the information which should be concealed with the object of protecting applicant's privacy and performing proper and fair examination. For example, personal information such as applicant's name, address and the like often becomes unnecessary and should be thus concealed in the examination.
For this reason, in the examination of the application document which concerns the administrative services and was filed by the citizen, it is necessary to form a document for examination on which specific sections are appropriately masked (concealed) with respect to each document. More specifically, to provide such a document, the application document is accepted, the accepted document is duplicated, the sections to be masked on the duplicated document are judged by an operator, and then the judged sections are actually painted by using a pen or the like.
Such an operation is inefficient because it is mainly performed manually. Moreover, in a case where the section to be masked has not been appropriately masked due to an operation mistake, there is a fear that a critical problem concerning human rights may occur from the viewpoint of privacy protection. In addition, because the original and the document for examination must be administrated respectively, it is troublesome to administrate the information as a whole.
To cope with such problems, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-101169 proposes a system which forms an examination document as electronic data by converting an application document (i.e., an original) written on a predetermined application format with use of a scanner or through a predetermined application.
For example, this system is used to form a material to be examined to decide whether to apply insurance to an applicant in a public nursing care insurance system. More specifically, this system consists of a first processing unit for registering a definition of a paper constituting a document (i.e., an application document) in a storage unit, a second processing unit for actually registering the document in the storage unit according to the registered definition and also recording information concerning the registration of the paper constituting the document in the storage unit, and a third processing unit for registering a definition of mask information indicating a section to be masked when the paper is output, in the storage unit as one of the definitions of the paper constituting the document. Thus, the application document filled by the applicant is read by a scanner to generate image data, and the mask definition is applied to the generated image data to perform a concealing process, whereby the material to be considered when the insurance examination is performed can be appropriately formed.
On one hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-207725 proposes a system which processes electronic data to have a form according to need in various services and business for opening information to public.
This system aims to perform a concealing process to a specific section on a PDF (Portable Document Format) document. More specifically, in this system, a PDF file including character codes is first input as original data from an original data input unit, the input original data is stored in a storage unit, the stored original electronic document (PDF file) is displayed on a document display unit, a concealing area is set on a part of the original electronic document by a concealing area setting unit through operator's handling to the displayed document, and then the set concealing area is stored in the storage unit.
Then, the character code in the original data is decompressed into bitmap data, and a part of the bitmap data is concealed by mask data, whereby intermediate data of TIFF (Tag Image File Format) is generated. Incidentally, the intermediate data is returned to the PDF data, and the processed data is then stored in the storage unit. As the result, the PDF file to which the concealing process has been performed to the area designated by the operator can be obtained.
However, in the system proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-101169, the mask process is directly performed to the read original image data on the basis of the predetermined mask definition. Thus, if the written contents to be concealed protrude beyond the predetermined area, it is necessary to correct the definitions themselves such as a predefined mask position, a predefined mask shape, and the like. Of course, because the application documents are filled with necessary items by an unspecified large number of applicants, various kinds of errors are made on the application documents by the various applicants. In other words, according to increase in the number of application documents, a correction process for mask definitions becomes extremely complicated, thereby inefficient.
In particular, because the mask process is directly performed to the original image data in this system, if the mask process is once performed, it is impossible to return the original image data to the state before the mask process is performed. That is, in a case where an operator intends to confirm the originally written content of the mask-processed area, the operator cannot confirm it.
Moreover, when the application document includes plural pages, that is, for example, when it is necessary to append a certificate of tax payment, a medical certificate and the like to the application document which has been filled with personal information of the applicant, there are a lot of cases with improper order on pages of the application document. Here, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-101169 described as above does not disclose that, when page order of the application document to be read is different from defined order, such a difference is recognized. As the result, in a case where the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-101169 is simply applied, when the operator reads the application document, it is necessary to confirm entirely the page order of the application document, thereby inefficient. Moreover, when the operator makes a mistake in case of correcting the page order, there is a fear that the information to be necessarily concealed is not masked correctly. In such a case, privacy protection cannot be achieved, and thus there is a high possibility of occurring a critical problem concerning human rights.
On one hand, the above system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-207725 premises that the PDF text data is used as the target of the mask process, whereby this system is improper for a mask process to image data obtained by scanning a paper (i.e., an application document). Moreover, in this system, because the mask process is performed to the input original data, if the mask process is once performed, it is impossible to read and obtain the information existing at the mask-concealed area.
That is, such problems as described above can be eliminated by providing a system which can surely and easily perform the mask process to a predetermined area even what state the original data to be input is, and also by providing a system which can assure originality of the original data by not performing the mask process to the original data itself from the viewpoint of easy administration of information and assurance of originality.